ArticleBiophysical journal2013
Nonlinear strain stiffening is not sufficient to explain how far cells can feel on fibrous protein gels.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 119 citations in OpenAlex.
- Composition Matters: Collagen vs Polyacrylamide Modulates Distinct Trabecular Meshwork Cell Traction.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2026Article
- Cyclic stretch inhibits cell invasion in 3D scaffolds.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cyclic mechanical loading of photopolymerized methacrylated hydrogels for probing interdependent effects of strain, stiffness, and substrate composition in pulmonary fibrogenesis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- An optical system for cellular mechanostimulation in 3D hydrogels.Acta biomaterialia · 2024Article
- Compressive instabilities enable cell-induced extreme densification patterns in the fibrous extracellular matrix: Discrete model predictions.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Unexpected softening of a fibrous matrix by contracting inclusions.Acta biomaterialia · 2024Article
- Clots reveal anomalous elastic behavior of fiber networks.Science advances · 2024Article
- Mechanical Intercellular Communication via Matrix-Borne Cell Force Transmission During Vascular Network Formation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Hybrid cellular Potts and bead-spring modeling of cells in fibrous extracellular matrix.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
- Tunable Mesoscopic Collagen Island Architectures Modulate Stem Cell Behavior.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2023Article
- Effect of hyaluronic acid on microscale deformations of collagen gels.Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials · 2022Article
- Cell-matrix reciprocity in 3D culture models with nonlinear elasticity.Bioactive materials · 2022Review
- Effect of matrix heterogeneity on cell mechanosensing.Soft matter · 2021Article
- Cells exploit a phase transition to mechanically remodel the fibrous extracellular matrix.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2021Article
- Long-range mechanical signaling in biological systems.Soft matter · 2021Review
- Long-range mechanical coupling of cells in 3D fibrin gels.Molecular biology of the cell · 2020Article
- Relaxation of Extracellular Matrix Forces Directs Crypt Formation and Architecture in Intestinal Organoids.Advanced healthcare materials · 2020Article
- Elastic Anisotropy Governs the Range of Cell-Induced Displacements.Biophysical journal · 2020Article
- Stem Cell Mechanobiology and the Role of Biomaterials in Governing Mechanotransduction and Matrix Production for Tissue Regeneration.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2020Review
- Physical confinement induces malignant transformation in mammary epithelial cells.Biomaterials · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Recent observations suggest that cells on fibrous extracellular matrix materials sense mechanical signals over much larger distances than they do on linearly elastic synthetic materials. In this work, we systematically investigate the distance fibroblasts can sense a rigid boundary through fibrous gels by quantifying the spread areas of human lung fibroblasts and 3T3 fibroblasts cultured on sloped collagen and fibrin gels. The cell areas gradually decrease as gel thickness increases from 0 to 150 μm, with characteristic sensing distances of >65 μm below fibrin and collagen gels, and spreading affected on gels as thick as 150 μm. These results demonstrate that fibroblasts sense deeper into collagen and fibrin gels than they do into polyacrylamide gels, with the latter exhibiting characteristic sensing distances of <5 μm. We apply finite-element analysis to explore the role of strain stiffening, a characteristic mechanical property of collagen and fibrin that is not observed in polyacrylamide, in facilitating mechanosensing over long distances. Our analysis shows that the effective stiffness of both linear and nonlinear materials sharply increases once the thickness is reduced below 5 μm, with only a slight enhancement in sensitivity to depth for the nonlinear material at very low thickness and high applied traction. Multiscale simulations with a simplified geometry predict changes in fiber alignment deep into the gel and a large increase in effective stiffness with a decrease in substrate thickness that is not predicted by nonlinear elasticity. These results suggest that the observed cell-spreading response to gel thickness is not explained by the nonlinear strain-stiffening behavior of the material alone and is likely due to the fibrous nature of the proteins.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.